


Virtual Puzzles in Reality

by Tarlan



Category: Cube (1997), Thoughtcrimes (2003)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Hewligan, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-30
Updated: 2008-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:03:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reality and dreams become entwined for David after the nightmare of the Cube.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Virtual Puzzles in Reality

**Author's Note:**

> LJ _smallfandomfest_ prompt: Cube/Thoughtcrimes, David Worth/Brendan Dean, Puzzle  
>  and LJ _hewligan_100_ prompt: 030. Death. (but this is NOT a death fic!)

David woke with a gasp, wincing as he snapped upright and felt his neck protest the action. His body felt like it had gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson and he groaned. Even his face felt swollen from the blows he could recall so vividly. Ignoring the pain, he jumped to his feet and tore at his clothing, feeling every one of the injuries wrought upon his body and desperately wanting to make certain that it was just a dream.

Nothing. No gaping wounds, no blood seeping through his clothing to pool on the floor beneath his dying body.

"Just a dream. Just a dream," he chanted softly, heart rate slowly falling back to normal.

His labored breathing began to slow and he glanced back down at his desk, seeing the drool marks drying on the keyboard and snorting softly as he realized he must have fallen asleep on top of it, which would explain why his face felt swollen and uncomfortable. He could bet he had 'keyboard face', with his cheek lined in the shape of the small keys.

David scrubbed his hands through his short hair and reached for his stone cold coffee, wanting to ease the dryness in his throat, and then he checked the time, wincing when he realized he'd slept for at least ten hours.

Such a vivid dream though.

He stared down at his monitor, blinking rapidly. The screen saver had turned off when he jolted awake and the Cube, his previous project, was spinning lazily on his screen. It was the outer casing requested by a shell company that was most likely a front for the US intelligence services, with a single access point to an unknown interior, a project he had delivered on schedule only a few weeks earlier. That was the military way though, offering up only a single part of the whole puzzle to each contractor so no one could put the entire picture together and sell the idea to their 'enemies'. Except he couldn't recall opening up that particular schematic when he settled down to work yesterday, or was it the day before yesterday?

He was shocked to realize that he'd lost almost two days.

Admittedly that wasn't so unusual with him. He'd failed at more than one relationship due to this inability to keep track of how many hours and days spent in his office, losing himself in his work. He'd always had a great eye for design though, of analyzing angles and curves, of seeing the most intricate details in every building or construction and committing those details to canvas. He could have been an artist rather than an architect but his chosen canvas was the computer monitor these days.

The cube kept spinning lazily on his screen, taunting him like some animated Dali with its sides melting as it spun around and around.

Perhaps this nightmare was his subconscious interpretation of this particular project because he would never see the real thing built but knew, instinctively, that it would have a nefarious purpose. His job had been simply to design it and not be involved in the construction process beyond submitting the schematics.

The nightmare had felt so real though.

David slumped back down into his seat and leaned back, letting his head loll against the head rest as he gazed up at the high windows of his own cubical version of hell, his office, feeling the exhaustion dragging at him despite his recent sleep. The terror from his dream started to slip away and he closed his eyes, feeling more in control even though the fear still crawled at the corners of his mind.

He felt so tired and his body ached everywhere.

When he opened his eyes again, he was shocked to realize that another four hours had passed and his neck was truly protesting this time but at least he felt slightly better rested. With another glance at his monitor, he decided it was time to close everything down and go home. Perhaps it was time to take a few days off before he completed his work on the next architectural design requested by an influential museum curator.

****

With a gasp, David sat up, eyes wide and panicked until he felt the breeze coming through the open window, cooling against his sweating skin. Beneath him, his sheets were soaked in fear-induced sweat. He swallowed hard, flicking on the bedside lamp and forcing his erratic breathing back under control.

He'd been back there in the dream, inside the Cube, reliving his beating at Quentin's hands, and that horrific sense of falling as Quentin dropped him through the hatch into the room below, using his body as a sick means of determining if that room was booby-trapped. He had awoken as his body hit the floor below with a sickening crunch, aware that only his graceless, loose-limbed and semi-conscious condition had prevented any further injury like broken bones or a snapped neck.

This was the second night in a row that he'd relived vivid scenes of death and mutilation, of frightened people huddling together to defeat not just the callousness of the Cube but of the psycho that stalked them through it.

He could see all of their faces so clearly, and yet he could swear that he'd never met any of those people before the start of these nightmares. Except he couldn't really swear that as they must have come from somewhere; a person passing in the street, a next door neighbor from his childhood, perhaps, or some extra in a porn movie downloaded when he got sick of his own fantasies and needed something new to work with.

He startled again when the buzzer sounded at his door, loud and insistent, and swore when he realized it was not the early hours of the night but only halfway through the evening. Once more he had slept for only an hour before the nightmares crawled out of his subconscious to strangle him. The doorbell buzzed again and he, shakily, pushed to his feet and grabbed his dressing gown before heading for the door, not wanting to face anyone while clad only in sweat-soaked boxers.

A glance through the spyhole revealed two strangers, a man and a woman, who were holding up government ID cards. It was a measure of how exhausted and disoriented he felt that he didn't notice they were both hot until he had ushered them through to the one room that wasn't overflowing with design ideas, books and magazines.

"Um...What did you say your names were again?"

The handsome man with the dark, messy hair raised an eyebrow and pulled out his ID once more. "Special Agent Brendan Dean of the NSA, and this is my partner, Freya McAllister."

"And...Why are you here?"

The woman, Freya, stepped closer. "To talk about your dreams."

"My..?" He sighed. "You know what? I think I'll put some more coffee on."

Freya smiled. "Why don't you sit down, Mr. Worth, and I'll make coffee."

In his befuddled brain, still hung up on the last dream, that seemed like a great idea, and he slumped down onto the comfy couch, aware of the way his dressing gown had come undone but uncaring that the... Agent? Brendan?...was getting an eyeful of naked chest and thighs. He thinks he might have fallen asleep in the few minutes it took Freya to make the coffee as, suddenly, the aroma was wafting beneath his nose and he thought he saw an exchange of her hand smacking the back of Brendan's head, the soft words of _down, boy_ drifting across the room. Down where? He thought, wondering why Brendan looked flushed and guilty.

The caffeine woke him slowly, pushing aside the exhaustion and tiredness but he almost dropped the mug at Brendan's first words.

"Do you know a police officer by the name of Quentin?"

"He does," Freya answered for him, her eyes widening even as images of Quentin's psychotic face played through his head; the violence, the fists that smashed against him, the cold-blooded killer who'd let go of Helen, and Quentin's gruesome death as the outside Cube crushed his body, smearing him along the edge of the inner Cube.

"He's just a... I don't understand."

Her eyes were focused on her partner. The paleness of her features made him wonder if she had experience the same dream of death and mutilation except he didn't recognize her as she'd not been in his nightmare. Perhaps she'd had similar nightmares of her own, one filled with horror.

"Just a dream...A nightmare."

Brendan moved and sank down onto the couch next to him, tongue licking over his lips as if in contemplation of an ugly task as he placed a hand on David's bare thigh. The heavy weight grounded him for a moment, the heat seeping into the clamminess of his own skin as he tried to shake of the images of Quentin.

Brendan spoke softly. "It wasn't just a dream."

Despite an urge to remain on the couch with the heavy weight of that hand hot against his thigh, David jumped up.

"No. No. It was a dream because...because..." He took a deep breath that shuddered through him. "Because I'm not hurt and...and in the dream I was...."

"Dying," Freya added, her eyes wide and haunted as if he was not the only one reliving that terrible moment as he lay down next to Joan, his blood pooling beneath him, and only the knowledge that Kazan had made it to safety offering him any comfort. "You were dying." She frowned. "Helen? Joan?"

"How did you...?"

"Joan who," Brendan asked softly.

It took David a moment to recall. "Leaven. Joan Leaven. She was just a kid, a clever kid. A Math student from..." He shook his head as the rest of the details eluded him. He scrubbed a hand across his face. "I liked her."

"And Helen?"

He could see her face but the details were slipping away within the exhaustion. "Look. I'm really tired."

"We need you to get dressed and come with us," Brendan stated, and David blinked in confusion.

"Now?"

****

Brendan helped Worth dress and gather a few belongings. They had to take him to a place of safety before the people behind his dreams realized that the NSA had stumbled upon their experiment. What he noticed most, though, was how compliant Worth seemed, making no arguments against being removed from his home, but Brendan knew just by looking into his eyes that the man was drugged. The enlarged pupils had swallowed his irises, leaving just a corona of deep blue offset by the dark smudges of exhaustion, and his soft lips were parted, slackened by whatever narcotic flowed through his veins.

Brendan had left his coffee untouched and mentally warned Freya not to drink hers because he'd seen coffee mugs scattered across Worth's apartment. It was the most obvious means of getting the drug into the man's body. Once they had him away from here and in a safe place then the drugs would work out through his system, and maybe then they'd get more sense out of him.

His thoughts returned to the chance circumstance that had led him and Freya to David Worth.

Dr. Welles had been at a mental institution looking at another patient who had exhibited similar signs to Freya, when the authorities had brought in Quentin. He'd listened to the man rage about conspiracies and cubes. His years as a psychiatrist working on top secret government projects had warned him that this was something different from the normal pattern of psychoses that crossed him in his everyday line of work. He was reminded more of the brainwashing experiments carried out in the late 70s using LSD. With a whole lot of curiosity warring against a little reluctance, he'd brought in Freya, warning her of Quentin's probable insanity before allowing her into the room with him, forgetting that Freya had lived with insanity for years before he rescued her from her own living hell.

Everything she related to Welles only confirmed his theory of brainwashing, and Freya managed to drag two names from Quentin's mind: Sweet Joanie, and David Worthless. Finding one Joan in a whole country was a needle in a haystack but Brendan had narrowed down the other name quickly to half a dozen David Worth's, anticipating that Quentin had added the derogatory _-less_ to the name.

This David Worth was the only one they had tried because Quentin had given Freya an image to go with the name. Once she had picked his face out of the small selection of David Worths, Brendan could have committed that image to memory in a single glance but he found his eyes lingering on the photo of a good looking man with sparkling blue eyes and a shy smile that barely lifted the corners of his mouth. They had decided to follow this lead immediately, leaving other agents with the task of trying to narrow down the search for a brilliant, dark hair girl with almost elfin features.

Worth stumbled as Brendan helped him into back seat of the car, slumping sideways as his heavy eyes closed. Freya climbed in beside him and guided Worth's head down onto her lap, her fingers stroking through his hair. As Brendan gunned the engine, his eyes caught Freya's in the rear view mirror and she smiled sadly as she whispered soothing nonsense to the semi-comatose man.

"We're being followed," Brendan stated softly. He'd seen the car parked just down the block from Worth's apartment, his eidetic memory holding every detail of the car except for the driver, who'd not been visible when he and Freya had arrived earlier. The car had been following them for a couple of miles despite Brendan making several unnecessary turns.

Part of him wanted to stop and question the driver but, as he glanced back at Freya, seeing the spark in her dark eyes, he knew had to put Worth's safety first so he called it in instead. Hopefully, other NSA agents would detain the driver, allowing Brendan to get Worth to a secure location, and he smiled as the other car was suddenly cut off, leaving him to put his foot down on the gas and accelerate away.

Worth startled awake several times during the long drive to the Welles' research institute but Brendan could hear Freya whispered gentle reassurances, sending the exhausted man back to sleep each time.

Knowing of her past, she simply amazed him at times like this by the sheer depth of her compassion for others. She could read all of a person's sordid, innermost thoughts, could see the nightmares that consumed them, the bad things they had done, and still feel compassion for all but the most hardened criminal. He loved her, but felt guilty that he wasn't _in love_ with her and never would be.

"Love you too," she murmured, and he shook his head at the easy way she could read his mind despite his practice in blocking his thoughts. "In a brotherly way," she added for good measure, and he knew that was the truth. In the months since they became partners, he'd started to look upon her as more than a colleague but as the family he'd never known while growing up because of his eidetic memory. Perhaps that was something they had in common because she'd lost contact with most of her family and all of her childhood friends due to her psychic abilities.

By the time they reached the institute, far away from civilization, Brendan had received word that they'd found Joan Leaven in a similar state to Worth and were bringing her in. Several of Dr. Wells' assistants stepped up to the car as he pulled alongside the main entrance, gently lifting Worth from the car and transporting him inside on a gurney, and Brendan felt strangely lost without the sound of his soft snuffles and whimpers as he slept.

"Michael." Freya smiled and accepted a hug from Welles, one eyebrow rising sharply when Brendan made no immediate move to greet the doctor, eying him cautiously instead. Accepting the silent rebuke, Brendan held out a hand, which was clasped firmly.

"Dr. Welles."

"Michael," he replied with a glint in his eye because this wasn't the first time Welles had asked Brendan to call him by his given name. Freya rolled her eyes and grabbed both of them by the arm to lead them inside, only letting go when they reached the room where the assistants had settled Worth into a bed.

Brendan could not help but stare at the sickly pale face with dark smudges beneath the soft crescent of long, brown eyelashes. Despite being of similar age, Worth looked almost too young and vulnerable against the starkness of the white sheets. If anything, he looked far worse now than earlier when they first met.

"Is it the drugs?" he asked but Michael shook his head slowly.

"Yes and no. The mind's a pretty complex thing, and his mind is almost convinced that his body has suffered major trauma recently. It's trying to heal injuries that don't exist in reality. What he needs most right now is dreamless sleep and a chance to get the drugs out of his system."

Brendan frowned and looked to Freya, recalling that Worth had dreamed he was injured and dying. "What exactly are we looking at here?"

"Highly suspicious and illegal brainwashing techniques," Michael answered. "At least seven people abducted from their homes or work places, and subjected to psychedelic drugs and virtual reality brainwashing to place them into dangerous situations just to gage their reactions."

"Virtual reality? Like those arcade games?"

Michael looked directly at Brendan. "The drugs would have made the simulations very real, like being inside the arcade game; living and breathing it, possibly in real time for more than a day before the session ended with a near death experience."

Michael walked closer to the bed and studied Worth carefully, and Brendan bristled a little at the close attention with an overpowering sense of possessiveness over the sleeping man. He frowned at Freya's soft grin before turning his attention back to Michael's continued explanation.

"They must have been monitoring closely to pull each victim out before they experienced the actual pseudo-reality of their death, but left those still in the 'game' with the full visual impact to add to the realism."

Brendan was confused, wondering why they had to be pulled out so close to death. "I thought that was just an old wives' tale, about dying in your dreams killing you in real life."

"In normal dreams? Yes. But this wasn't normal."

"What about Joan Leaven?" Freya asked.

"Exactly as you described from Worth's mind. She's a gifted math student who's spent the past two days in bed with some kind of flu, according to her parents. They even had a doctor come out twice... though, perhaps not so strangely, that doctor isn't accepting any calls right now."

Brendan nodded, not needing to be a mind reader to figure out that the doctor was likely working for the organization that had brainwashed Worth, Quentin and Joan Leaven. Unfortunately, it meant that organization was now fully aware of NSA interest in them so they would be destroying as much evidence as possible before Worth or Leaven could offer any more insight into their experiments.

"What do we know so far?" Brendan took his eyes off Worth momentarily to look to Freya and Michael for answers.

Freya sighed. "Both Quentin and Worth's nightmares are the same. The same place...a series of interconnected, cube-shaped rooms where some are harmless and others hide hideous death traps, and only one way out of the puzzle."

Brendan couldn't help being drawn to Worth, unaware that he'd slowly made his way across the room until he was staring down at the sleeping man. He took in the IV drip feeding sedation drugs into Worth, knowing the medication had been chosen to counteract what Michael had found flowing through Quentin's veins. So far they had three people from different parts of the country, coming from different backgrounds and with different ages. Everything pointed to a random selection process and yet...

"I don't think the seven were chosen at random. They're connected somehow, like important parts of a puzzle."

Michael sighed. "Well, we won't learn anymore until he wakes up, and as much as I like solving puzzles, we'll have a clearer idea of what we're dealing with once he's lucid rather than flying high."

Michael turned to leave the room, followed by Freya but Brendan felt as if his feet were glued to the floor.

"Would you mind if I stayed a while?"

Michael's eyebrows rose in surprise but Freya's mouth twisted into a fond and knowing smile; Brendan wished he could be honest enough with himself to see what she was reading from him. Instead he sank into the chair beside Worth's bed and stared at the man's profile with its thin yet cute nose and wide, soft mouth. The long lashes flickered occasionally even though Michael had insisted he would not be dreaming but Brendan felt a need to reach out anyway, letting his hand rest over Worth's, his thumb caressing warm skin in gentle reassurance.

Worth quieted beneath his touch and Brendan smiled, letting his thoughts and memories float through his mind.

He saw the memory like a video playing back in his mind as Worth opened the door to his apartment, reliving his first sight of the vulnerable and strangely handsome man. His hair was in disarray and Brendan recalled the soft sheen of his pale skin despite the coolness of the apartment, wondering if the man was sick. The deep blue of his robe would have matched his eyes perfectly except his pupils were blown and his eyes were bloodshot with deep, dark circles below.

He followed Worth down the hallway, eyes passing over framed photos and diagrams, noticing the _DW_ in florid script on the bottom edge of several artistic designs, which each one dated. One was an unusual cube design, the date beneath the signature only a few weeks earlier and, with a start, Brendan realized that what he was seeing was an outer shell with a single way in and out, just as Freya had described. The interlocking cube-shaped rooms would be inside Worth's outer skin design.

He flicked his gaze back to Worth, expecting him to be asleep but was surprised to see the blue eyes struggling to open.

"Hey, you should be sleeping."

"Do I know you?"

"We kind of met earlier today. Special Agent--"

"Brendan Dean."

Brendan grinned, strangely pleased that Worth remembered his name; he sobered quickly. "Look, you really should be sleeping."

"I keep dreaming. Will you stay here while I sleep?"

Brendan could see the fear in Worth's eyes and wanted nothing more than to take that fear away. "Sure. I'll stay."

The fear eased away leaving Worth gazing at him with heavy eyelids. "Okay," he whispered as his eyes closed and he slipped back into a, hopefully, dreamless state once more.

****

Michael smiled wryly as he watched Brendan on the monitor. He wondered if Brendan realized how transparent he was to anyone willing to look closely enough but couldn't help some self-analysis at the same time. Until this moment he had looked upon Brendan as a rival for Freya's affection but it was obvious now that Brendan's interest lay in a different direction--and gender. Something about Michael's most recent guest had captivated Brendan, revealing a softer side to Brendan that Michael had simply dismissed over the few months of their acquaintance.

In hindsight, he knew that side of Brendan had always been there but he had not wanted to see it. He had preferred to bury his head in the sand and believe Brendan was just another cold-hearted NSA agent like so many other agents he had dealt with over the years, hardened by their work. In truth, part of him had hoped that if he believed it hard enough then Freya might believe it too and look beyond the extremely handsome man for the love and affection she must have craved over those years stuck inside her own head. He'd wanted her to look to him instead, all the while afraid that she would see him only as a father-figure or savior.

He glanced sideways at Freya, seeing her pretty smile as she watched her partner, and wishing he was the mind reader. Instead, he kept his blocks set high to prevent any stray thoughts leaking out that might reveal how he felt about her, not wanting to alienate her by his own adoration for her. If she ever realized then he might lose more than her friendship. He might lose her trust and her respect too.

Michael felt a moment of concern when she glanced at him from the corner of her eye, wondering if he had inadvertently slipped up but she smiled softly at him.

"I've known about his preferences for months." She grinned. "We have a similar taste in men...blue eyes, intelligent." Her eyes were shining now, teasing and light, and knowing.

"Does that taste stretch to older men?" Already knowing that it did by the smile in her eyes, for him.

She grinned. "I guess it does."

****

When Freya tapped the door glass and beckoned him into the corridor, Brendan knew something had happened.

"The NSA has been monitoring deaths over the past three days, especially any under suspicious circumstances."

"And?"

" _Helen_ Holloway was found dead in her home after being unwell for several days. The coroner rushed through a report of death by natural causes and had the body cremated. Also, a prisoner called Renes who's been in solitary confinement for the past few days was found dead in his cell this morning from heart failure."

"Photos?"

"They matched the images I picked up from Quentin's mind."

"So someone is cleaning up after their mess," Brendan mused.

Silently, he asked about the two others, especially the severely autistic one called Kazan, but Freya shook her head. He should have been one of the easiest to find because of his condition but there was a strong chance that he had become lost in the system deliberately, perhaps being looked after by the organization that had controlled this experiment. Certainly it seemed like the organization specialized in studying the human condition under severe trauma and fear.

"There was a computer image mounted on the wall in Worth's apartment, a simplified schematic for the outside shell of a cube. His work."

"I don't think he dreamed up the cube from his work because Quentin lived it too."

"No, I don't think he did...but I think it's part of the puzzle. I think whoever paid him for that design wanted a computer schematic to build around their virtual reality. I think he unknowingly provided part of the scenery for the program. I think they made a big mistake using him in the VR afterwards, and then letting them all go."

Michael joined them. "They didn't expect anyone to link together seven people drawn from all over the country, and I don't think the experiment ended when they were put back where they were taken from. They put them back into their own environments so they could monitor the changes induced by the trauma sustained in the virtual cube." Michael gave a nasty laugh. "We probably ruined years of research into the human psyche."

"He's waking up," Freya stated, eyes gaining that faraway look from concentrating on another person's thoughts; she smiled as she turned to Brendan, "And he's wondering where you are."

Brendan felt a flush of pleasure mixed with embarrassment. "Maybe it's time to start asking a few more questions."

****

Brendan's questions triggered memories from his nightmare that David wished he could suppress forever. The ugliness and the blood, the fear and shock of finding himself trapped in a place where death lurked all around. He'd seen things; seen shocking, terrible things. He'd seen a man with his face eaten away by acid, seen body parts scattered across a floor. He'd heard Helen scream as she fell to her death and saw Joan's shock as Quentin took her life. The worse memory of all, the fact that it had all been for nothing, that if they had simply stayed where they were then the cubes would have rotated them to the single access point that led to freedom.

"There were good moments too," Freya stated softly, and David blinked, not understanding how she could know this when she wasn't there. "You tried to save them...Joan and Kazan. You did save Kazan. You gave your life to buy him time to escape from Quentin."

"I promised him gumdrops if he helped us."

"Helped you do what?" Brendan asked and the memory drifted through David's still tired mind.

Freya answered once more. "Mathematics. The serial number on each doorway was the answer to a complex math equation, and that yes or no answer told them if the room was lethal or safe to enter."

The man who had introduced himself as Michael stepped closer. "Kazan was a tool. That was his purpose, and you figured out how to use that tool."

Freya looked at David in awe. "You were protecting Kazan even before you realized his purpose there. You protected him from Quentin, from the Cube, and you didn't even know how important he was at the time. You just did it."

David looked into Brendan's eyes even though it was Freya waiting for his answer. "He needed me," he whispered, amazed by that little revelation. He had spent years cooped up in his cubical office with its windows set high to prevent the light reflecting off the monitor, never realizing that all he had ever wanted was to be needed, wanted.

"If I'm alive then...Joan? Helen?"

Brendan's face gave away his thoughts, leaving David with only one question that he believed already answered in silence.

"Dead?"

"Helen's dead...but we found Joan in time."

"In time? In time for what?"

"The people who took you are cleaning up after themselves, tying up all the loose ends but you and Joan will be safe--"

The lights cut out suddenly, plunging them into darkness, and David heard the scrape of metal against leather, knowing Brendan had drawn his gun.

"Freya?" Michael asked softly, expecting Freya to hear an unspoken question and provide an answer.

"Two men in the corridor outside."

David startled when strong hands felt along his arm with a sure touch, pulling out the IV before dragging him off the bed and pushing him under it. He heard other movement, inhaled Freya's clean scent as she crawled under the bed beside him. The door kicked open, blinding light flashing into the room offset by the star flash of gunfire from one of those small machine guns. David squeezed his eyes closed as a hand gun answered back, hearing the sharp cries of pain as bullets found their targets. Then there was silence filled only with his and Freya's harsh breaths.

"Freya?"

"Both down," she stated almost breathlessly, eyelashes blinking rapidly as the lights came back on revealing another scene of blood and gore, of sightless eyes wide open in death, staring almost straight into his own.

"Oh god! Oh god!"

David started to fight as he was dragged out from under the bed, only freezing when he realized he was being held in strong arms, his face pressed into the side of Brendan's neck. When he inhaled, the coppery scent of blood was lost beneath Brendan's scent of sweat and aftershave, and David tightened his grip around Brendan's waist, holding on for dear life as Brendan rocked him slowly and told him everything would be fine now.

****

The best part about having a boyfriend who was friends with an eminent psychiatrist was that he got free treatment, though David was positive that his speedy recovery had more to do with Brendan than with his sessions on the couch. Michael was great to talk to though, never treating him like a patient, just listening and offering advice, letting him talk through things that he felt too embarrassed to say to Brendan for fear of driving his new lover away.

It helped when he realized that he wasn't insane, that the dreams were true memories of hours spent inside a virtual environment that was so real that it was almost impossible to tell the difference between it and reality. The drugs had made it seem real, his body sending a mental shock to muscle and bone for every physical blow inflicted in that world, but his emotions and his reactions inside the Cube had not been faked.

Michael and Brendan had reinforced one positive aspect from his ordeal, that his true strength of character had come out under duress and he had shown them all that he could be compassionate and protective, and brave. He'd shown them that he would face down a psychopath to try to protect those weaker than himself, even if it led him to his 'death'.

In its own way, that helped him come to terms with what they had done to him and the others.

 _They_ had turned out to be a multi-million corporation contracted by the US government to provide virtual environments for training military personnel. Of course the government denied having any part in the research carried out using him and the others as guinea pigs. At least they denied it until Freya picked the thoughts straight out of the mind of the government liaison to the company, revealing his role in the whole sordid affair.

The government wouldn't do anything for Quentin, Alderson, Renes and Helen Holloway, not wanting to advertise the experiment, but they allowed Michael to remove Kazan from the VR company's research facility, giving him a home at Michael's institution. They compensated David and Joan more than adequately, providing Joan with all the financial support she would ever need for her education in the hidden form of scholarships and promises that she could have her pick of future employment opportunities.

His eyes still teared up a little when he recalled seeing Joan for the first time outside of the Cube, how she had thrown herself into his arms and hugged him so hard. No one had seemed to care for him that much before the Cube, and now he had an amazing set of friends. It almost made him feel guilty for those who had lost everything, including their lives, for Quentin had taken his own life once he came down from the drugs that had driven him into a state of paranoia, believing he had the blood of three people on his hands.

Michael called it survivor's guilt even though he hadn't survived the Cube. He'd died inside the simulation alongside Joan, with Quentin's blood on his own hands.

David gained enough financial compensation that he could afford to work for pleasure rather than money if he'd wanted. He never went back to his cubicle with its high set windows, and perhaps one other small sign of his ordeal was that he preferred curves to right angles nowadays but the museum curator loved his new style designs.

The biggest change in his life was Brendan, and if he had to thank the Cube for one thing it would be for bringing Brendan into his life. Except part of him still puzzled over the way his life had changed over the past year. Although his memories of the nightmare he'd lived inside the Cube had begun to fade at last, he often worried that his whole life was part of a dream, or another virtual reality.

Brendan sighed and opened sleepy, pleasure sated eyes. "I don't need to be Freya to hear you thinking," he stated softly, holding out a hand to David, beckoning him to come back to bed. David couldn't refuse, feet moving of their own volition, drawing him back into Brendan's arms. He rested his head against Brendan's chest, hearing the slow thump of his heart beating.

The soft glide of a hand down his side to stroke across the curve of his ass had him pressing closer to his lover, moaning softly in pleasure as he turned his face a mere fraction to kiss heated flesh, grinning at the tickle of chest hairs against his sensitive lips. Fingers squeezed his ass with a possessiveness that David adored. He tilted his head upwards, his lips caught in a passionate kiss, tongue sliding into his mouth eagerly as David writhed against Brendan in wanton abandon.

A gentle movement had him flipped onto his back with Brendan on top, the weight of his body pushing David into the mattress, the kiss unbroken as Brendan urged him to part his legs, allowing Brendan to settle between them. More urgings had him pulling back his legs, offering his already loose and slicked body for his lover but Brendan pulled back, fumbling for the lube on the nightstand.

"Never gonna hurt you," he murmured against David's lips, slicked fingers working into David's body gently, opening him carefully before Brendan pulled out and reached for a condom, rolling it down his cock before pushing in slowly. "Beautiful. So beautiful," he whimpered, hips rocking lazily as they made love for the second time that night, taking him to a exquisite, gentle climax that swelled over him.

As he sank back on the bed with Brendan sprawled by his side, half draped over him, David sighed in deep satisfaction. He threaded his fingers through Brendan's, holding their hands fast against his sweaty chest as he listened to Brendan's whispered words of love and contentment, breath warm against the shell of his ear.

Brendan snuffled as he burrowed closer into David's side, both of them still sticky and sweaty from making love but, perversely, David loved that sticky feeling. It made it feel real, made Brendan feel real, but if this _was_ still part of a virtual reality, then David hoped no one would ever wake him from it.

END


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